


bullet proof... i wish i was

by SparklyBiAnie



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: (eventually there will be comfort I promise), (the slowest of burns), Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bella is a vampire hunter, Bullying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/M, Family Member Death, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Twilight AU, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, Violence, but things get better, long fic, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:51:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparklyBiAnie/pseuds/SparklyBiAnie
Summary: After Bella suffers an unbearable tragedy, she begins to unravel. Edward is helpless to stop it.





	1. psycho bitch

**Author's Note:**

> "You have turned me into this, just wish that it was bulletproof."
> 
> -"Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was" by Radiohead

* * *

 

 

_PREFACE_

_*_

_She has seen enough of death to understand. Life has beaten the lesson into her like gravity._

_The humans. The vampires. The hunters._

_Everyone can die._

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Psycho bitch_ , Mike whispers venomously to Jessica.

Jessica giggles behind her hand, her eyes quickly darting to Bella’s face and back like she means to be discreet about it, but it is too deliberate to be accidental.

Bella feels the blood drain from her face. She grits her teeth and grips the plastic white spoon so tight she hears it snap. More whispers start up behind her but she doesn’t dare look now.

She pushes the food around her tray with her broken spoon, willing herself, as always, to become invisible.

But the feeling of eyes on her face never leaves her.

 

*

 

_Bitch Bella! Bitch Bella! Bitch Bella!_

The jeers sing through the hallways from every direction.

 

_That fucking pyro bitch_.

 

The whispers follow her throughout the corridors of Forks High School.

One year ago, it might have mattered to her. She would have hunched over, her face burning, and cried in her truck on the way home. But then, there were a lot of things that mattered to her a year ago.

(Not anymore.)

Now? She’s a rabid dog that people get some sick satisfaction from by prodding it with a stick every once in a while. Forks can be boring.

Small town murder is sure to get the blood pumping.

 

People used to ignore her completely. Now they avoid her with the added benefit of pointing and staring. And whispering. Always with the whispering.

 

_Do you really think she killed her whole family?_

She shivers on the way to class. For once, it has nothing to do with the freezing rain that soaks her all the way down to her bones.

 

_*_

**PYRO BABY KILLER**

 

The words are Sharpied in all caps across her locker.

 

They flash like sirens in front of her eyes.

(KILLER KILLER KILLER)

 

People have gathered around her locker, eyes wide and excited as they take in her reaction. She has no idea what expression is on her face right now.

The bell rings and she is still staring like a statue frozen in a perpetual state of tragedy. But eventually they get bored with their game like they always do, and they chatter disappointedly amongst themselves as they drift off to their classes. Her next class is in the room just across from her locker, but she can’t seem to move her feet.

 

( **KILLER** )

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Tyler Crowley tosses something small and thin in the air. He spins it in between his fingers as he passes her on his way to Trigonometry with Mr. Varner.

Right before he enters the classroom, she sees what he’s holding.

The air goes out of her lungs.

Tyler tosses the Sharpie into the air and catches it as he spins on his heels to face her. He grins widely.  

And winks.

 

*

 

Really, she doesn’t know how it happens.

She just sees the flashing words behind her eyes, the words that would be screaming if it had a sound.  The words that blur out everything but the stupid face of Tyler-fucking-Crowley.

(KILLER! KILLER! KILLER!)

She finds herself stomping into the classroom with her trig textbook in her hands, her mind somehow registering in the back of her head that she automatically grabbed the thickest book she owns.

 

She doesn’t remember seeing the shocked faces of her classmates as she slams the door open, she doesn’t remember the dumbfounded expression on Mr. Varner when he cuts off mid-lecture.

She remembers slamming her book right into the face of a gawking Tyler Crowley.

She slams the book right into his _jeering fucking grin_ — with enough force to hear the satisfying _crunch_ of his nose and the thud when his chair crashes backward and he hits the ground.

 

It doesn’t even slow her down. She pins him down and throws the book away, choosing instead to pummel her fists into his bleeding face, over and over. She can’t see— she can’t even breathe, she’s so fucking gone.

 

*

 

_Killer Bella. Psycho Bella. Isn’t it true she killed her parents and her little sister? Just burned the whole fucking house down to the ground, can you imagine?_

_*_

 

People say later that the sound that came out of her throat was like something animal, like something dying. Like something dying from a gaping, bleeding hole right in the dead center of her that no one else can see.

 

_Psycho Bella._ Mike may be right about that, she thinks.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Edward can’t stop thinking.

It’s pretty impossible not to think about the events of Mr. Varner’s fourth period trigonometry class, not when everyone within a 100-mile radius is thinking about it. And talking about it. Word travels fast in a small town. And being able to read everyone’s mind in said 30-mile radius doesn’t hurt either.

Bella Swan, town pariah, has snapped.

 

*

 

Really, he can’t comprehend why she showed up to school today at all. 

He had spent the day in a perpetual haze of unfocused apprehension, his mind on the date. The anniversary of their deaths. A year ago today, to be exact.

It had been on the local news this morning— the announcement of the “ _In Memoriam”_ wake the small police station of Forks would be hosting tonight, weather conditions be damned. The entire elementary school where Renee Swan taught and Nessie Swan went to school would be in attendance, along with over half the population of Forks.

Would Bella be there?

The Cullens would be in attendance, of course. Carlisle insisted on it, though his insistence was unnecessary. They all felt guilty. Especially Alice. Her guilt-ridden face was watching the planning for the wake on the news this morning and he can’t quite get that nagging anxiety out of his mind. His sister’s guilt plays on a loop in his head, right next to the tortured face of Bella Swan.

The incessant question plagued him all day. Why did she brave the angry mob of ignorant, gossiping teenagers instead of staying home?

Why did he even care?

 

*

 

He knows, of course, as do the rest of the Cullens, that Bella Swan had absolutely nothing to do with the tragic deaths of her family.

So why doesn’t she ever offer up one word to defend herself?

 

*

 

If he could read her mind like everyone else, this mindless obsession would vaporize in smoke. That’s what he tells himself.

He watches through the minds of the ignorant, vicious children. He watches as they jeer, accuse, and whisper. Always the whispers.

He watches her when she sits alone at the back corner of the cafeteria. He watches as her back stiffens and her face turns white as that _wretched_ Mike Newton whispers to that _dimwitted_ Jessica Stanley. He hears what they call her, of course. He knows what they always call her.

_Bitch Bella_.

He watches her as she stands up, dumps her tray full of untouched food, and shuffles like a zombie to her next class. He watches one thin, shaking hand (thinner than it was two weeks ago, he thinks with an irrational panic-) sweep a stand of hair behind her ear, tucking it forcefully into her messy plait. She hasn’t washed her hair in a while.

 

He watches her when she stands speechless in front of her vandalized locker for a long time. Just as he is about to go and make a show of _just happening_ to walk by her on the way to his locker ( _just happened to forget a book_ , that’s what he’ll tell himself-), the bell rings and her trance is broken.

He sees her shock morph into rage as she sees Tyler Crowley wink at her.

 

Tyler’s mind is cruel and shallow, filled with glee at the obvious reaction he managed to get from the school outcast. He doesn’t seem to register the danger he is in until he sees Bella Swan launching all 90 pounds of herself straight at him.   

 

He feels the pain of Tyler’s broken nose echo in his own mind, but he is so satisfied in hearing it crack under Bella’s fury that he doesn’t even flinch, not even in the middle of the shock he feels at seeing Bella Swan giving a 6-foot, 180-pound teenage boy the beating of his lifetime.

 

*

 

It isn’t until he hears _that sound_ through Tyler’s mind and the minds of 30 other children that his body goes cold, something beyond the ice-cold temperature it already is.

He hears Bella’s animalistic shriek, full of pain and fury and _grief_.

 

He sees the class erupt into chaos like a car crash through Jessica Stanley’s eyes.

He sees students jumping from their seats and screaming as the short and frail Mr. Varner struggles to pull Bella off of Tyler--she’s exerting so much force in beating his face to a bloody pulp that the sudden wrenching movement throws her off balance and she falls backward _hard_ — catching the side of her face on the edge of a desk.

She goes out cold.

He jumps up from his seat.

His chair clatters behind him, the only sound in a room suddenly full of 30 pairs of wary eyes and an irritated English teacher.

“Mr. Cullen?” Mr. Mason frowns, personally offended at being interrupted mid-sentence. “Do you mind finding your way back to your seat, so I can continue with my lecture?”

For the first time in a hundred years, he feels like he can’t breathe.

“I do mind, actually,” is all he can manage.

With that, he sweeps up his things and is out the door in the same second. Slightly too fast for human comfort but passable enough. He simply can’t be bothered with appearances at the moment.  

Although the chess-club boy who sits next to him can’t seem to shut his stupid, gaping mouth.

 

*

 

Bella’s scream, as she broke the face of that mindless infant, haunts him.

He heard it once before, in the memories of a grief-weary Carlisle. How could he ever forget it?  

 

(Bella, writhing on a hospital bed, burned halfway to hell.)

(“ _Miss Swan… I am so sorry. Your family did not make it.”)_

 

(He would have to live another thousand years to understand the pain in the scream that followed.)

 

*

 

In the middle of his rush to the front office, he detours sharply.

A quick scan around the parking lot shows that the lot is mainly deserted. Students are still in their fourth period classes.

For reasons he doesn’t want to look at too closely, he slashes the four tires of Tyler Crowley’s dark blue SUV with a quick sweep of his fingernails.

 

 

* * *

 


	2. reminders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There's no end, there is no goodbye."  
> -"Wait" by M83

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Chapter specific trigger warnings at the bottom*
> 
> Memories, flashbacks, and things that happened in the past are all italicized.

* * *

 

 

_The only thing that could be deduced from the crime scene was that the fire had started in Bella’s bedroom._

 

 

* * *

 

 

( _Before_ )

 

_The first bloodsucker she killed was a newborn nomad in Phoenix. There were plenty of them in the South._

_He had followed their perfectly laid traps into an abandoned warehouse, lured by the promise of honey-sweet blood. Instead, he found himself walking into a steel ankle trap, laced with hunter fire venom._

_They quickly surrounded him, two powerful hunters. Her and Charlie._

_The leech was seething, spitting in their direction like a rabid dog._

_Bella and Charlie had pointed their weapons straight at the leech’s inhumanly beautiful face. His skin was bone-white, with sharp cheekbones and long, dark brown hair that framed an angelic face._

_It was hard to notice his beauty and hear the demonic snarls ripping from his chest at the same time. They were two sharply contrasting images and she had difficulty balancing them both— her awe and her terror._

_His jaw kept snapping towards her face, delirious with thirst, even in the face of death. He craved her strong hunter blood, sweetened with her magic._

_He was young— a newborn. He must have been only 14 at the most, when he died._

_Bella had been young, only 13 years old. She was still naïve enough to feel pity over the life of the young boy that would be lost. She still thought of them as boys, back then._

_Her father, watching the sympathy play on her face, did not approve._

_“You’re going to kill it, Bells,” he said._

_She looked up at her father— shocked. She had never killed one before. She helped set the traps, helped dispose of the bodies, of course. She trained fiercely and dutifully day after day. She learned to manipulate her inner magic with Renee, mastered the weapons with Charlie, and repeated the legends to little Nessie at night like bedtime stories._

_But she had never killed one of them before._

_She swallowed hard— and raised her crossbow. She hoped feverishly that her hands would not shake._

_This is what she was born to do, after all. Protect her family, protect the humans, protect those who could not protect themselves._

_There was no room for pitying monsters._

 

 

* * *

 

 

(After)

 

“YOU’LL BE HEARING FROM OUR ATTORNEY, YOU SON OF A BITCH—”

The shrieks cut off as a door slams abruptly.

“ _She needs to be locked up far the hell away from here_ …” The shrieks are muffled through the wall and trail off as the voice storms farther and farther away. Distantly, Bella can hear the sounds of sirens.

The yelling wakes her up, the dream of her first vampire kill fading with every waking second.

Mrs. Crowley, Bella remembers the voice. She had met Tyler’s mother at the funeral, dripping with over-dramatic tears and condolences. The whole town must have attended and offered their condolences. So many names. She’s surprised she can remember at all.  She was near catatonic at the time.  

She realizes that she is in the nurse’s room with no memory of ever getting here, lying on top of starchy, crinkly paper on the rolling bed.

She can vaguely remember briefly waking up, on the floor in her math class, with her nose inches away from a pool of blood—not good not good, definitely _not good_ — and promptly passing out again.

She must have been bought here while she was unconscious. How embarrassing.

She straightens up with difficulty— her body protests immediately— when she realizes she has an audience.

Mr. Varner, Nurse Jackie, and Principal Green are all there, staring at her with serious faces, crossed arms, all radiating varying degrees of disapproval. They are standing right next to— _shit_ —

Police Chief Burke.

“Bella… We need to talk.”

She is going to murder Tyler Crowley.

 

*

 

“We’ll keep this quick, since you need to get your head looked at. Nurse says you’re stable for now but you’re still a minor and a student. We’re liable for all kinds of shit if you keel over in the next five minutes so answer me plainly and we’ll let you go and get treated.”

“Actually, Chief Burke, I have to get back to—”

“Sit. Down.”

No way out. Bella sighs and sits back down slowly.

Her entire body aches. Her knuckles are raw. Her face is throbbing so badly, she actually has trouble blinking. She must have gone down _hard_. Inside her mouth, she can still taste the metallic tang of blo—

 _Don’t think about that_ , she reminds herself fiercely.

She readjusts her ice pack over her eye. Chief Burke purses his lips and settles himself back on the principal’s chair. She wonders where Principal Greene went. Probably still having an aneurysm outside in the hallway.

“Ok. So. Let’s start with the basics. You’re not in handcuffs so you’re obviously not arrested but I can’t promise Tyler’s parents won’t sue you for assault.”

She tries not to look so guilty. From Chief Burke’s expression, she fails magnificently.

“I’ll go down there before the day is out and try to reason with them,” he continues, wearily rubbing his face. “There might be a chance Mrs. Crowley will drop all charges if I threaten to charge her son with vandalizing school property and harassment. You’ll have to be suspended for a week or two, but I’m hoping we can avoid the mess of criminal charges.”

Huh. She’d forgotten to care about the possibly of suspension. Or jail. Still, she can’t manage to dredge up any sense of relief. It’s like the events of this morning are reaching her through a haze of static.

“Isn’t that blackmail, Chief Burke?” She can’t quite muster any real sarcasm or emotion in her voice. It comes out sounding flat and dead.

Chief Burke chuckles once, humorlessly. “Would you like to file an official complaint?”

Then, all sarcasm drains from his expression and he leans forward on the desk, his face grim.

“Bella.” he starts out, voice hard. “I know how… difficult… today must be for you— hell, for all of us,” he says, straightening up in the principal’s chair. “ _But_ —you _cannot_ go around assaulting each dickhead who looks at you the wrong way or says the wrong thing. And believe me, there will always be plenty of those.”

Her head throbs harder. She just needs this conversation to be over so she can go home and sleep the wretched remainder of this day away. Because like _hell_ is she going to _Forks County Hospital_. She shifts in her seat and tries to look like she’s taking his words to heart.

“You have to learn how to take what small-town folk say with a grain of salt. The ones who really matter will always know the truth. That being said…”

He smiles wryly.

“Charlie really taught you how to throw a punch, didn’t he?”

She cautiously readjusts her ice pack. He really has no idea how true that statement is.

He clears his throat with a distracting rasp— smoker’s lung for sure. He suddenly seems uncomfortable. He shifts in his seat before continuing.

“I’ve also been meaning to ask you if… you had given any more thought to the brochures I left for you at the funer— the last time we saw each other,” He rushes on, trying to cover his slip.

Mentioning the funeral in front of Bella is a giant red button with a sign stuck to it, reading _do not touch with a 20-foot pole_. But then again, so is his next sentence but he slams the red button down anyway.

“I’ve heard these trauma programs can work wonders in people suffering from PTS—”

 _Hell no_. 

She cuts him off quickly.

“I don’t need any _mental_ help, Chief Burke.” Her tone is clipped and sharp, much too loud for the small, warm office. “I’ve told you before. I’m doing the best I can with… with the situation. I really am.”

PTSD. Honestly.

She wasn’t some heroic soldier, returning valiantly from the battlefield. Definitely not one of those. And even if she had it (which she _doesn’t_ ), wouldn’t speaking the truth be counterproductive in a therapy session?

The truth would get her medicated in a white-padded room, drooling into a cup.

“Kid,” he says. She flinches at the endearment. “The last thing _any_ of us want is for you to end up in a jail cell because you made the wrong choices in the middle of hurting for your family. You should be grieving and… coming to terms with it. And if you’re still not coping…” He trails off.

He doesn’t need to finish for her to know what he is thinking. That she is a nut case, that she is unstable.

That maybe she _should_ be locked up and monitored 24 hours a day.

He leans forward on his chair, eyes intent.

“Are you coming to the wake tonight?”

Just like that, her anger quickly dissipates into smoke. The wake. Her entire body goes cold.

“The whole town will be there. And people would love to see you… show their support…” He trails off.

She shudders.

He gives her a sad smile. “If you change your mind, you’re always welcome to come around. I know you may not always feel that here, with them fool rumors, but it’s true. You got a whole lotta people behind you, Bells.”

The nickname unsettles her like nothing else. The ice around her heart shivers, then cracks. A tiny fissure.

 

She needs to say it.

She’s been meaning to get around to it but it was much easier to avoid him. Chief Burke was an old family friend. Charlie’s friend, specifically, but still. That’s _why_ she was avoiding him. But she knows— looking at the tired lines around his face, made worse by the entire events of this morning ( _her_ fault), that she should have got around to saying the words sooner.

He frowns as he takes in the conflicting emotions on her face— grim determination, mixed with the urge to bolt. Here goes.

“Chief Burke. I’m…. sorry about today,” she stalls. _Coward_.

He smiles too kindly at her, a little sad.

“You don’t need to apologize to me, Bella.”

“But...” She takes a deep breath. “Thank you. I mean… for everything,” she says lamely. “For the wake and… and for checking up on me.” She steels herself. “I’ve been meaning to apologize for… what happened last time. I’m sorry I blew up at you at— at the funeral. I know you were only trying to help.”

Her legs are shaking uncontrollably now. She is freezing in the warm room, feeling horribly exposed in her shame. Her grief was too out in the open today, for everyone to see. First with the whispers. Then with Tyler. And now with the memory of the horrible things she shouted to Chief Burke when he tried to have her committed.

It was too much for one day, too much for any day.

When she finally gets the courage to look up again, she is surprised to see his face drawn with guilt.

There is a perceptible pause in the air as he struggles with what he clearly needs to say. And the next words out of his mouth are not what she was expecting.

 “I _am_ trying to find him, Bella.”

The ice in her heart freezes over again. She flinches.

She knows where this is going, and this is not a conversation she was hoping to have when she dragged herself out of bed this morning. This is not a conversation she was hoping to have _ever_. She swallows down the rising panic. She hasn’t prepared for this yet.

“It’s been a year now…,” he continues, “and I know I’ve let you down. He should be caught by now, paying his due. But I….” She feels her face flush, horrified, as she hears the crack in his voice.

He clears his throat and starts again.

“I’ll get the son-of-a-bitch. I _promise_ you that.”

He sniffs once, then goes silent, his eyes on the floor.

She stares at him.

His skin is sagging a little underneath his eyes. He smells distinctly of cigarettes and whiskey and she knows the second he goes back to the station, he’ll reach for the small flask in the bottom drawer where her dad used to keep his lunch bag back when that was his desk. Back when that was his office.

Chief Burke is still looking for an arsonist who doesn’t exist.

He’s still trying to find the imaginary madman responsible for the deaths of her entire family. But after a year of searching, he’s still no closer to solving the case than he was the first day after it happened.

No leads. No evidence. No nothing.

She can’t even tell him how useless it is. She knows exactly the thing it was that killed her family.

And vampires don’t leave evidence.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_(before)_

_Killing vampires was something Charlie knew well. But he also knew his eldest daughter’s tendency towards sympathy._

_“They only look like people, Bella.” His voice was grave, his next words sounding foreboding enough to carve themselves into her memory, even years later. “Remember, these things will not hesitate to rip your throat out. Never trust a leech. They bewitch, Bella. We’re the ones with the magic but they’re the ones who bewitch.”_

_The newborn’s blood-red eyes glared back at her, seething._

_But when she drew back her arrow, she also saw fear in those red eyes._

 

* * *

 

She realizes that Chief Burke looks like he’s aged a million years since she’s seen him last. She realizes that he will look for her family’s killer until his dying breath. It’s haunting him, and he will never find the answers.

And that? That is one hundred percent on her.

“I know you’ll find him.” She hears her automatic response come out of her mouth in a flat monotone.

She is the biggest piece of shit.

“I just want you to get some closure over all this and… you know that you can come and see me if you need anything, right?” His voice is earnest and slightly desperate. “Anything at all, you come on down to the station. We miss seeing you over there.”

She forces herself to smile. It pulls at all the wrong muscles in her face.

“Thank you for your help…” Her voice sounds strange coming out of her mouth. “I think I just need some time to myself for everything to… you know. Feel normal again.”

It’s a fail-safe excuse that will probably stop being effective sometime in the near future, but it’s good enough for now. She is desperate to be alone, and exhausted with this conversation that isn’t doing either of them any good.

Chief Burke gives her his trademark watery smile that looks more like a grimace and nods. She tries to smile back. Then he sighs heavily as he pushes his chair away from the desk to stand— conversation over.

Thank god.

She stands up to leave as well and she almost makes to it the door before a heavy hand lands on her shoulder.

Chief Burke gives her an awkward pat as he opens his mouth to speak and subsequently destroys any notion of her getting away with a trip to the hospital.

“You’re made of tough shit, kid. You’ll be alright. You go and get that head looked at now. I called ahead to the hospital and Dr. Cullen is already expecting you. Nurse Jackie can give you a ride. The last thing we need is some kind of spectacle.”

 

*

 

She steps out of the principal’s office, wincing as she feels how hard it is to walk.

She must have hit her side on the desk too. She’ll be bruised for sure.

She runs her fingers over her lower lip, rubbing away the metallic flavor left there from her already healed cut. The rest of the bumps and bruises will have to wait until after she sees the stinking doctor.

Her bad mood sours— the human charade is exhausting, but the delay in her healing her body with her magic is necessary if she wants to avoid the leech doctor finding out what she really is.  A normal doctor probably wouldn’t have noticed those imperceptible differences in anatomy, she thinks bitterly.

She’s so distracted that she doesn’t notice who else is in the reception area until the hairs on the back of her neck stand without warning.

 

Her eyes shoot up straight across the room and it’s the absolute last thing she needs to see right now.

The leech, of all people to run into? Although, granted, “people” is a very generous classification.

 

Edward Cullen is standing with his back to her, shuffling some papers mindlessly in his hands as he waits for the receptionist to get off the phone. She doesn’t know if she imagines it, but his back seems to stiffen ever so slightly as the principle’s door swings shut behind her.

“Are you ready, dear?” Nurse Jackie’s kind voice, saturated with pity, rings out through the reception area. She steps out of her office, her keys already in hand.

The sound of her voice causes Edward to turn around.

His face is carefully blank as he looks at the nurse, then, very slowly, he turns his head to look over at her.

He frowns very, _very_ slightly as his eyes rake over her face— back and forth and back and forth— which is sure to be one giant bruise.

Like before, with Tyler, she can’t tell what expression is on her face. It’s hard to notice things like that when she is choking with pure rage.

 

But through whatever look he sees on her face, he stiffens. The entire line of his body goes impossibly still and his eyes harden.

He doesn’t look away from her face. Doesn’t even blink.

She ignores her hunter’s instinct that is screaming at her never to turn her back on one of _them_. She turns away from his stony face, stalking out of the door into the freezing sleet. 

There have been too many reminders today already.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  _(before)_

 

 

_The strange metallic shredding sound only lasted a split second, but she still flinched when the arrow found its mark through one of the newborn’s garnet eyes._

_Aim for the head— even amateur hunters knew this too. Their precious minds were more vulnerable than their dead, un-beating hearts._

_The second that hunter venom hits the vampire brain, it’s all over._

_The newborn leech fell to the floor with a heavy thud. Her first kill._

_Vampires are dangerous, vampires are uncontrollable, vampires are savages. She knows this like she knows her own name._

_But when she saw the newborn’s shattered angelic face, she couldn’t help but cry._

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Did you need something, Mr. Cullen?”

The receptionist’s voice pulls him out of his trace, staring at the door that just closed behind Bella Swan. His mind cannot move past the last ten seconds.

He looks down at the various colorful school flyers he came to collect in his hands. His flimsy excuse.

He drops them back down on the desk and they scatter in a dizzying array.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Cope,” he hears himself say. “I’m just looking.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

He drives, speeding through the pouring rain.

He thinks he might be going insane with the sudden influx of information in his brain— it flashes in dizzying speed one after another.

 

The frenzy in the trig room— the crack of Tyler’s nose— the unbelievable strength it took to pull Bella off of him— the force with which Bella fell against the desk— Bella speaking reluctantly to Chief Burke as Edward watched raptly through his thoughts— Bella flinching when he mentioned looking for the mystery murderer….

He replays the total lack of emotion on Bella’s face as Chief Burke promised her that he would find the nonexistent arsonist. Not a lack of emotion like Bella didn’t believe what the chief was saying, but a lack of emotion that told him that she was hiding something from the Chief, that she knew more than she wanted to show…

He steps harder on the gas.

 

That fall.

Edward replays it in his photographic memory, again and again.

Mr. Varner pulling her off. Bella losing her balance, Bella falling against the desk, Bella splitting her head open, Bella passing out, Bella hitting the floor again on her way down.

He zooms in on that detail.

Bella, hitting the floor so hard that her teeth catches her lower lip.

He remembers seeing the blood there through Mr. Varner’s scattered thoughts. He remembers— _explicitly_ remembers— her teeth breaking through the thin skin there as she bit down on her lower lip.

She had a split lip— he is sure of it.

Then why— _why_ — did she step out of that office touching perfectly smooth lips? _Healed_ lips?

 

He didn’t understand it. Humans healed but no human could heal that fast.

 

And then her scent.

Every other human in that maddeningly cramped office smelled overwhelmingly warm and distinct. He could smell the tang of stress and whiskey that ran through Chief Burke’s blood. He could smell the cheap perfume on Ms. Cope. Even the nurse, who smelled strongly of antiseptic sanitizer, set his throat burning.

So why did Bella Swan come across so strangely muted to his senses? It had been strange before. But now— it is a screaming sign of proof to what he knows is true.

She had open cuts on her face and hands and he could not smell the blood.

 

If they would have passed each other on a crowded street as strangers, he would have smelled the faint whisper of human blood that classified her as human and he would have passed her without a second thought.

But Bella Swan was not a stranger. He was around her every day.

And every time he tried to read her thoughts or track her scent, he would reach some kind of impassable bubble that shielded her from his most acute senses.

Her scent was too faint, too indistinguishable. Too…

Too deliberate. 

 

Her strange scent, her silent mind, her emotionless face with Chief Burke, her healed lip—

The revelation comes before he reaches Forks County Hospital. He careens the car into an impossible space by the curve.

 

He forgot the most obvious detail. The most damning tell.

Her immediate hatred of him.

Before he even spoke a word to her.

 

The rain pours over his windshield like a breaking dam, the wipers swinging widely back and forth. His hands grip the steering wheel so hard it almost snaps into pieces in his fists.

 

Somehow, impossibly— Bella Swan knows what he is.

 

And he thinks he knows what she is too.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: negative mental health dialogue, mentions of PTSD
> 
> Bella is deeply in denial about her head space. Edward is deeply in denial about his Bella-feelings. Also, if the end of this chapter confused you, the tags should give you an idea of what Bella really is. 
> 
> Will update later this week.


	3. in memoriam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You're a colorful soul in a technicolor world,  
> While you're living it black and white.”  
> —"All We Are” by Andy Kong

* * *

 

 

**93 YEARS AND 3 DAYS AGO**

_He was a shadow, drifting in between beacons of colorful, changing light. People came. People went. He stayed the same, watching them._

_People who would wave goodbye without even knowing what they were leaving behind._

_Him, captured in this life that he was stuck repeating— over and over and over._

_Expecting different results._

* * *

**1 YEAR AND THREE MONTHS AGO**

 

_“_ Edward _— look at me when I’m talking to you.”_

_(It was another day, another pointless beginning and really, what else was there to say? What more could be possibly learned or heard or felt or experienced that he had not already done a thousand times over already?_

_Was this what their existence would boil down to? This charade? Pretending to move forward, reading the same stories, relearning the same tired concepts, seeing the same small people who would never know him, who would never know the awful truth of the world?)_

_The minds were droning on in the background and they were just as desperate as he was for something— anything to happen._

_Except Rosalie’s blathering._

_“Why on_ earth _would that be necessary, Rose? Are you really so desperate for adoring eyes? Look no further,” he jerked his head in the direction of a reedy-looking sophomore, who was gaping open-mouthed at Rosalie, looking close to drooling._

_The poor child flushed purple as Rosalie threw her hair behind her shoulder while simultaneously leveling him with a glare that could melt the Arctic. Impressive, he had to give her that._

_“I asked you a question,” she said, her tone clipped and slow, like she was speaking to an imbecile. Her perfectly annoyed face entered his peripheral._

_“Are you really serious about this? Going off on your own again after what happened last time…” Her voice trailed off. Concern looked odd on her face, not at all a sight he was used to seeing._

_“… last time a half a century ago?” He finished her sentence for her._

_He was being unnecessarily sarcastic and difficult, he knew this, but he was annoyed with her. Annoyed with Alice. Annoyed with Jasper, and Emmett, and Esme, and Carlisle… He had explained it too many times already and they continued to be difficult._

_“I’m not in the slightest danger of losing control. Temptation is an impossibility.”_

_“But I just don’t understand_ why _—”_

_“You don’t have to understand anything. Besides, you do a fine enough job of that without me getting in the way.”_

_“_ Ha ha _,” she drawled sarcastically. She drew herself up. “Buuuut… if you could just give us the smallest reason for leaving—"_

_“Rosalie, you don’t believe you are being the slightest bit irritating?”_

_“— then maybe Mom wouldn’t be so worried,” she continued, like he hadn’t spoken._

_“Esme is not worried.”_

_“She thinks you’re depressed.”_

_“I’m not depressed.”_

_“You’re something.”_

_“I’m annoyed.”_

_“_ Edward _—” she finally cut him off, “talk to Carlisle if no one else. We know something is not right and we do want to help.”_

_He resisted the urge to roll his eyes._

_“We do care about you, you know.” She sniffed haughtily, completely ruining the plea in her words._

_He sighed and slouched in his chair— already in a foul mood— and it was only 10 o’clock in the morning. A remarkable accomplishment, really._

_He knew, grudgingly, that she did really mean it the best way Rosalie could mean anything. She was not worried like Esme was worried per se, but the situation at home had become uncomfortable. And Rosalie_ did not do _uncomfortable, as she liked to remind him— frequently and loudly._

_“I’ll think about it,” he said after a few seconds of watching Rosalie pick at her nails. But he did roll his eyes._

_Rosalie stuck her tongue out at him but her thought floated up into his mind anyway._ Thank you _._

_The whole conversation happened in the back of their dark Spanish classroom in muted voices, much too fast and low for their classmates to hear. Everyone else was already chattering quietly amongst themselves, not paying the badly dubbed Spanish version of_ “The Wizard of Oz” _any attention. Mrs. Goff was too burned-out to care. She was flipping through a magazine, pretending to be unaware of the utter lack of control she had over her students._

_He watched the awful movie silently for the remainder of the class, trying to remember what yawning felt like._

_The bell finally rang. He dully shoved his memorized books in his bag._

_Rosalie swept out the door, not bothering to glance back. No need, after all, when you have all the time in the world._

_(He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to notice, but his family never said goodbye to each other. Never had. Not once in years.)_

_(The realization made him sad, though he couldn’t exactly understand why.)_

 

 

* * *

 

 

**60 YEARS AGO**

 

_The feeling had intensified over years. He didn’t even have the words to explain it to himself._

_It was an aching loneliness, to feel people’s minds so unbearably intimately, and know that it only went one way._

 

 

* * *

**10 YEARS AGO**

_He had killed so many people that he was afraid to be alone._

_Afraid of the return of The Monster when he would eventually emerge from the darkness of his own mind._

_Esme had said he had always been melancholic but now he wondered if it was something else. The thoughts and emotions of others had become too much to bear, somewhere down the line. He could only feel the echoes of things that had happened to other people. It made him feel plastic and broken— like he had been wired wrong somehow._

_His family could not understand._

_Carlisle was a beacon of raw, unpolluted hope, matched in his kindness only by the soft-hearted Esme. Emmett was not one to dwell in darkness, nor was Alice. Jasper was protected by his guilt in a way he hardly noticed, by the claim of ignorance. He couldn’t have known any better. And Rosalie had deserved her kills through God-given right._

_But he had killed. He had endured hearing the frantic thoughts of dying predators— of savage, barbaric humans._

(men)

_It wasn’t for blood. It wasn’t because of thirst._

_(_ The truth is something he cannot even admit to himself _._ )

 

 

* * *

 

 

**1 YEAR, 3 MONTHS, 21 HOURS, 59 MINUTES, AND 10 SECONDS AGO**

 

_It was the truth that was on his mind the moment that Bella Swan walked into the Fork’s High School cafeteria._

 

 

* * *

 

 

**1 YEAR, 3 MONTHS, 21 HOURS, 59 MINUTES, AND 9 SECONDS AGO**

_It had been such an automatic thing, to follow where the crowd’s attention suddenly sharply diverted._

_It was like a dozen people had suddenly stood, turned, and pointed to the new object of their attention, like children ogling a shiny new toy._

_He had automatically turned to look._

_He had heard the vague gossip about the new kid from some random thought here and there over the past week. A girl, the new police chief’s daughter, moving from sunny Phoenix. He hadn’t paid too much attention, too focused on other arrangements. But now, he looked up across the cafeteria._

_(It was like he hit a wall.)_

_An ordinary girl— a bit too pale, a bit too rigid— fussing with her lunch card, looking distracted next to a chattering Jessica Stanley._

_She looked anxious, staring avidly in front of her, never once looking around._

_He automatically reached for the strands that he could pick up, that he could follow to pick her brain find out why. And—_

_Nothing._

_Not even a whisper._

_His siblings sat next to him, pretending to eat. And didn’t notice that the universe had just shifted on its axis._

 

_*_

 

_He watched her for the rest of the lunch period, trying to reach behind whatever that was that shielded her voice from him._

_At one point, she froze in her seat._

_She looked halfway up from her lunch tray and he felt a stir of excitement. She was going to follow that instinct humans had, the reaction to look up at the feeling of someone watching you. She would look up and look straight at him._

_But no._

_She stared at the same spot in front of her._

_(His intuition flickered. It was like she was staring at him through her peripheral. Like she knew exactly where he was sitting, and she was deliberately not looking there.)_

_Then she looked down, her face strangely blank. Revealing nothing. The people next to her chattered away and she made no effort to join them._

_For the first time in a long time, he felt blinded._

_*_

_When she got up to dump her tray and head to class, he got up to do the same._

_He had waited for her to get up first. As she headed outside, and the chilly wind blew her hair back as she pushed open the double doors, blowing her scent right into his face where he was standing, not ten feet behind her._

_He remembers feeling disappointed._

_It was strange in how boring it was. Muted, like the air around her._

_(But he couldn’t explain the inkling of suspicion. Like he was in the presence of something extraordinary, hidden behind a veil.)_

 

* * *

**1 YEAR, 1 DAY, 10 HOURS, 21 MINUTES, AND 52 SECONDS AGO**

_He didn’t tell any of his siblings of the mystery of Bella’s block on his mindreading._

_He could not rationalize why he didn’t want to. It wasn’t like it was dangerous or important for them to know. But he did not want to tell them._

_He was alone for a long time, surrounded by people who were not. Carlisle had Esme, Rosalie had Emmett, Alice had Jasper. He could feel their pity towards his loneliness in their thoughts more and more._

_It was strange and petty, but it was still not enough to get him to tell them._

_The mystery of Bella Swan was something that was his alone._

_*_

 

_He had no classes with her._

_He spent his time in his classes pondering over explanations to her strangely silent mind. Nothing seemed to fit. He also followed the thoughts of the people surrounding her, his attention split between trying to solve the mystery and genuine intrigue in the kind of person she would turn out to be._

_He was left unsatisfied._

_People talked to her, excited with the new girl. They wanted to be the ones to get her to speak, to gain her friendship. A few of the boys wanted something more than just friendship, and he didn’t know why that bothered him as much as it did._

_But she never let anything slip._

_She would smile, nod, and offer small commentary, just enough to get people to think they knew her._

_He learned that she missed Phoenix but was getting used to all the rain. He learned that she had already read all the books in her English class curriculum. He learned she disliked being called Isabella. Not because she had said it aloud, but because he had watched her face twist unhappily when people said it to her so many times. He learned that she had a little sister that she absolutely adored, not because she said it outright, but because her face would light up every time she answered that question._

_“Do you have any siblings?”_

_“Yes, one. A little sister.”_

_It was the happiest he ever saw her._

_(But the shield was on her face more often that it wasn’t. It was in her every expression— she hid her emotions well but the reason behind the vague sadness in her eyes when the mask fell away eluded him too.)_

_*_

_In the cafeteria— the closest he ever was to her— her face was blank. She put more effort in her mask then._

_Not once did she ever look in the direction of the Cullen table. Not even accidentally._

_Not even when the table’s favorite topic of discussion— the scandal of the adopted Cullen’s relationships— took over the conversation. Her eyes stayed glued to the lunch tray in front of her. Every time._

_(Which was what gave her away.)_

 

* * *

**1 YEAR AGO TODAY**

_Before the murders, Bella had been an enigma, a mystery he would only ponder at in a distance._

_After._

_After, Bella was a shrieking ghost, haunting his every thought._

 

* * *

 

 

**9 MONTHS AGO**

 

 

_Exactly three months after the murder of her entire family, Bella Swan had finally come back to school._

_*_

_That morning, he had learned from the frenzied thoughts of the school counselor, Ms. Patterson, that Bella’s schedule had been flipped around to allow for a counseling session in the middle of her school day._

_She would see the counselor during 6 th period to check in and would finish out her history class online to allow for the change. _

_That wasn’t what made his breath seize in his lungs._

_Bella now had Mr. Banner’s 6 th period biology class for the rest of the school year._

 

 

* * *

 

 

**THE BEGINNING**

_He wouldn’t have thought that brown could burn._

_But her eyes did._

_It was the first time she had ever looked at him, despite already attending Forks High School for 6 months._

_They scorched with such a fire that the moment she walked into that biology classroom, he knew in a fraction of a second that she absolutely, irrevocably_ loathed _him._

*

 

_This was before the rumors started, back when people would look at Bella and feel pity. Along with a sense of voyeuristic fascination for the entire tragedy._

 

_She walked into Mr. Banner’s class with a martyred expression, the face of someone asked to do something despicable but necessary for a short period of time._

_She took the only open seat in the room. Right next to his._

_(There was ash on the bottoms of her shoes.)_

*

 

_She had shorn her long chocolate locks to a jagged cut level at her jawline._

_He remembered Carlisle’s memory of that night— the fire had eaten away the ends of her long hair into a melted mess. The new cut was choppy and harsh, like she had hacked away at it with dull scissors. It made her look older— sharper, more beautiful. More damaged._

_Her skin was paler than was normal, the unhealthy pallor making her look like she was cold._

_The burn scars that swept across her forehead were so faint that he doubted they would scar. There was a beige bandage on the side of her neck that covered the worst of the burns on her neck. Still healing. Overall, she had healed miraculously well, though he couldn’t judge the progress of the other scars he knew were there— the ones that had encased her entire right side— because she wore a thick green sweater with jeans._

_There were deep, dark purple circles under her eyes that were a screaming sign of proof to the extent of her grief in the past few months._

_She could almost pass for a vampire, he thought, if vampires could look like they were dying._

_*_

_He had never seen anything so mesmerizing. So painful to look at._

_He took in every minute detail of her appearance— from the tips of her ashy shoes, to the small cut at the edge of her lip— in a second. She was thin, almost painfully so._

_(Her eyes screamed. Her mind was silent.)_

_Her face betrayed nothing but pure hatred when she looked at him. Her eyes swiveled away when he wouldn’t (couldn’t) look away but the hatred never lessened one degree. She sat stiffly in the chair right next to him._

_If looks could kill, he’d be a pile of ashes on the floor._

_(She glared at_ him _.)_

_(Without the slightest whisper of fear on her face.)_

_(Him— a fearsome predator that everyone else avoided looking at or even speaking to by some instinctual compulsion of self-preservation.)_

_(Him— The Monster—intimidated by a small, frail human girl?)_

_(He would have laughed at the idea if he was not so dumbfounded with the realization that it was also one-hundred percent true.)_

_For whatever reason, Bella Swan hated him before he even spoke a word to her._

_He stared at her small, pale fists for the rest of the class period. She never relaxed her tension, not even for a second. He could see the white bandage on her right wrist. It peeked out from where she tried to hide it, under her sleeve._

_When the bell rang, she sprang up from her chair._

_Her leg brace was secured tightly around her right leg— no cast. Carlisle had been adamant that her broken femur would heal with no complications. It had been a clean break._

_It did nothing to her ability to storm out of the classroom without a backwards glance. She was the first to leave the class._

_He could only stare after her, struck dumb and in no small amount of awe._

_Her mind, as always, remained frustratingly blank._

_*_

_He watched her through the minds of others as she left. He saw her eyes change from her burning stare to an exhausted weariness, as if her display of loathing had absolutely drained her._

_For the rest of the day, he watched her._

_The hostility did not return with any other person— she kept her face down, hiding as much of the burns and the cuts as she could, her hair falling in front of her face like a thick curtain. She looked at no one. She spoke to no one, not even to those few who braved the throng to offer their condolences. Even then, she kept her head down, completely mute, until the person would get frustrated and leave. She was a zombie, acknowledging nothing and no one. He had been the exception._

_The mystery burned._

 

*

 

**NOW**

 

“Bella, wait.”

(wait)

(it is the first thing he ever says to her)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting. I have decided to update two chapters a weeks so expect a new chapter later this week!
> 
> Time skips around a lot in this chapter. Time for Edward gets more distinct and significant when he meets Bella. In case you didn't catch it, Edward and "the truth" will be an important part later in the story. 
> 
> Please, please review! This is my first Twilight fic and I would greatly appreciate feedback if you are liking this story!

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part to what is to be a long, intense fic. (Things will get much worse before they get better.)
> 
> I talked a bit about where this story inspiration came from in my tumblr (link below) but basically I wanted to create a fic where Bella knew about vampires because her whole upbringing revolved around hunting them down and killing them, and how different that would make the events that take place in Twilight, especially the romance with Edward. 
> 
> This fic will start out following the events in Twilight, then will detour sharply. 
> 
> WARNING: This fic is much darker than Twilight. Additional tags will be added below each chapter to avoid spoilers. 
> 
> I will update later this week! Please let me know if you like this story! It is my first Twilight fic and I am eager to meet new readers!
> 
> Link: https://sparklybianie.tumblr.com/post/178407425771/new-twilight-fic-update


End file.
